Opinion - Leader Page Articles   

Defending the liberal voice

The assault last week in Hyderabad on Taslima Nasrin, the exiled Bangladeshi writer living in India, is to be seen in the context of two other such incidents that have taken place in the last four months. While condemnation, outrage, and regret are the logical reactions that come from those who respect the Indian Constitution, democracy, liberal ideas, and the rule of law, there is a pattern emerging from these incidents that needs careful examination.

In May, Niraj Jain, a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) activist and lawyer, entered the Faculty of Arts in Vadodara and vandalised exhibits that were part of the annual internal evaluation process of the Faculty. While Mr. Jain and his supporters smashed pieces of art and assaulted the students, the police stood mute spectators to the whole incident. The Vice-Chancellor of the M.S. University suspended the Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Shivaji Panikkar. Chandramohan, a student whose work was part of the internal evaluation, was arrested on charges of causing offence to the religious sentiments of Hindus and Christians. Chandramohan spent five days in prison before he could get bail. Liberal voices across the country marched, wrote petitions, and appealed to the good sense of the organs of the state to ensure justice. The VHP activist who desecrated an institution of excellence and learning remains a free man. No case has been registered against him till this day.

On July 13, a political science teacher’s comments in class at the St. Ann’s College for women in Hyderabad led to demonstrations against the teacher and her subsequent arrest. The students alleged that the teacher, Ms. Prashanti, had made derogatory remarks against Islam in the contest of discussing Salman Rushdie. The students marched shouting slogans demanding that a case be registered against the teacher and she be arrested for hurting their religious sentiments. Politicians belonging to the Majlis-e-Ittehadul Musalmeen (MIM), the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), and the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) jumped into the fray demanding action against the teacher. The teacher later apologised for her remarks and was released on bail.

The latest in this series is the attack on August 9 in Hyderabad on Ms. Nasrin. She was to release a Telugu translation of her book at the Press Club in the city when MIM activists led by three MLAs attacked her. The three legislators were arrested and later released on bail. The MIM leader Sultan Salauddin Owaisi commended the assailants and his son, Akbaruddin Owaisi, also an MLA, defended the assault on the author and said that his party would ensure that Ms. Nasrin would never be allowed to enter Hyderabad again. The MIM, in turn, has filed a case against her under Section 153 (a) of the IPC for hurting the religious sentiment of Muslims. The police meanwhile have booked a case against the MIM legislators under Section 506 for criminal intimidation.

In all the three cases mentioned above, a pattern seems to be emerging. Firstly, the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat government and the Congress-ruled Andhra Pradesh government came up with reactions to these incidents that were uncannily similar in tone and substance. Both governments reiterated that the law would take its own course. The way the law operated, in the first instance, Niraj Jain remains free and immune to punishment, justice, and censure. In the other two cases, the testimony of a mob was sufficient to imprison a political science teacher and book a case against Ms. Nasrin. Contrast this with the case of the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister’s brother being involved last month in a case of road rage involving the son of an MLA who happens to be the Chief Minister’s political bete noire. In this instance, a case of attempt to murder was registered against P. Janardhan Reddy’s son.

The second feature of all these cases is the idea of ‘hurt’ religious sentiments. While the Constitution does provide for ‘reasonable restrictions’ against freedom of speech, there has been little attempt in the country for the last 60 years to define what form or manner of speech or expression is ‘unreasonable’. If disruption of public peace is the sole standard by which to measure imposition of reasonable restrictions, then it is evident that the easiest thing to do in the country is to hire a mob to create such disruption. In a landmark judgment striking down the ban on the cinematic version of The Da Vinci Code in 2006, Justice G. Raghuram of the Andhra Pradesh High Court had perceptively ob served: “Dissenters of speech and expression have no constitutional right in respect of the intellectual, moral, religious, dogmatic [beliefs] or the choices of all mankind. The Constitution of India does not confer or tolerate such individualized, hypersensitive private censorial intrusion into and regulation of the guaranteed freedom of others.”

Further, the three MLAs involved in the assault on the Bangladeshi writer have sworn to protect and preserve the Indian Constitution and its stated guarantees. This includes the preservation and furthering of the rule of law. After the incident, the three MLAs and their leaders have argued that they consider their religion to be above the Constitution of India. While the sentiment for one’s religion as a private individual is entirely tenable, defiance of the Constitution in the public realm can never be justified. It is a supreme irony that while a mob can determine and persuade the law enforcement machinery to take into account alleged instances of ‘hurt’ religious sentiment, a blatant defiance of the Constitution invites little or no action on the part of the state machinery. The supreme irony is that the MIM regretted the vandalism in the Press Club in Hyderabad, stating that the party had the greatest respect for the press. This arbitrary and opportunistic use of the instruments of democracy is dangerous and hypocritical.

These trends have serious implications for liberal democracy and the Indian polity. For it is the very stuff of democracy that it allows expression of sentiments such as those of the Praveen Togadias and the Akbaruddin Owaisis of the world. Yet, these very individuals with regular impunity and insouciance trample the freedoms that democracy bestows. There are also those among us for whom liberal and secular notions such as freedom, equality, justice, fairness, truth, and beauty are as sacred as the piety of a man of religion. While these secular values may not yet have been invested with the emotional charge that religion has acquired, the Indian state has been less than fair in protecting these liberal and secular ‘pieties.’ There is a third set of people who are entirely happy to keep religion within the personal realm and equally cherish the secular freedoms that Indian democracy grants to them. There is, therefore, an essential tension between these contending and often incommensurable claims. One way to lessen the divide would be to hope for a more potent idea of citizenship, which would, in future, enable the girls of St. Ann’s College to march against the communal carnage in Gujarat, in favour of those displaced by the Narmada Dam, against corruption, and in favour of nuclear disarmament.

But the first step is to recognise that in this fight for decency and the liberal space, the Togadias and the Owaisis share their predilection for brutality, terror, intimidation, falsehood, self-serving theories of victimhood, and sanctimonious self-righteousness. David Shulman, the writer and peace activist, in a recent book titled Dark Hope, puts the point across succinctly: “This conflict is not a war of the sons of light with the sons of darkness; both sides are dark. 221; He quotes from the Greek poet Seferis who said, “There are always but two parties, Socrates and his accusers.” One must choose between the two is Shulman’s advice.

The zealots who assaulted Taslima Nasrin accusing her of denigrating their faith, overlooked an important injunction in the Koran: “If anyone attacks you, attack him as he attacked you.” If for the purposes of argument, one were to agree with the MIM and its supporters that Taslima Nasrin did, indeed, offend and attack their faith, the way in which she did so was through the pen. The defenders of the faith, then, must follow the letter and spirit of the Ko ran and attack her through the pen and not through the sword. In following this sublime message lies the way to strengthen Indian democracy.

Stories in this Section

Making the General blink
Harmonising monetary goals
Defending the liberal voice
Humanitarian crisis in Iraq
Finding the good news from Iraq
Diversity and historical anniversaries
On the verge of financial meltdown
Adding insult to injury
Threat to democracy
Misuse of freedom
Other options

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu